Rod Wave wants people to stop treating the emotions in his music as a diagnosis of who he is.
During an interview with Charlamagne Tha God, the Florida rapper pushed back against the "sad rapper" and "depressed" labels that have followed him throughout his career, arguing that fans often build an image of him from his songs without actually knowing his personality.
"The biggest misconception that people have about me, I feel like people don't really understand, like, my personality," Rod said. "I feel like I don't give them as much of reality... as much as I could. I don't give them enough reality to the point where they take whatever they see out in the world and they make that the image of me."
That image, he explained, has become frustrating because the stories he tells aren't necessarily reflections of how he feels today. Rod also drew a distinction between experiencing sadness and being depressed.
"Sad is a feeling... depressed is more like defeated, like you just beat down," he said. "Do I look defeated? No. What I'm saying, I'm still going and I done been through shit just like everybody else in the world."
He then pointed toward his work ethic as evidence that the characterization doesn't fit.
"If depressed mean depleted, can't take it no more, flat down to the ground, how the hell do we do six albums back to back to back to back to back to back?" he asked. "Where was he depleted? Where did it get confused at?"
Rod added, "I ain't depressed. I don't even like that word 'cause I don't let nothing get...I don't even let nothing get to me for real."
Even describing his music as simply "pain music" has started to bother him. Instead, Rod views his catalog as an honest reflection of experiences that aren't always represented in an online culture filled with carefully curated images.
"I'm starting not to even like that word because it's not even just pain," he said. "It's just testimony. It's just real life... it's not pain, it's not sad, it's not—it's normal. It's reality."
"I feel like the world is so stuck on the internet, everybody living these fake perfect lives," he continued. "So I'm just living in reality."
That reality also changes over time. Rod noted that songs can sit for months or years before listeners hear them, meaning fans may be connecting his present-day life to emotions he experienced long ago.
"How I was feeling six months ago, a year ago, I might not feel right now," he explained. "Life changes."
For Rod, music has always provided somewhere to document those changes. He acknowledged arriving on the scene with "a lot of pain" and "a lot of scars," but said putting those experiences into songs became a form of therapy that allowed him to move forward.
And where he is today, Rod said, couldn't be further from the defeated person some listeners imagine.
